Essential terminology: role clarity, job function, organizational chart, responsibility matrix, independent contractor, employee, workplace culture, onboarding, training plan, compensation, employer brand, compliance risk, span of control.

Required materials: current business-plan draft; Week 1 business overview and goals; Meeting 3 customer profile, competitor comparison, marketing channels, and sales approach; staffing-plan worksheet; role/responsibility matrix; sample startup org charts; video-conference access; shared document or paper worksheet.

Timed agenda totaling 120 minutes:
0-10 min — Welcome, continuity check, and HR lens. Instructor reviews the purpose of this meeting, confirms how Week 1 concept work and Meeting 3 market decisions affect staffing, and explains how HR assumptions will affect Week 3 financial projections.
10-25 min — Mini-lesson: From customer promise to work requirements. Learners translate the intended customer experience, product/service delivery, sales process, and operations needs into tasks the business must perform consistently.
25-40 min — Professional example and discussion. Case study: a local service startup that overestimated owner capacity and underestimated scheduling, onboarding, and customer-service duties. Learners identify staffing risks and prevention strategies.
40-55 min — Guided business-plan development: role inventory. Learners list all recurring business functions, including sales, service delivery, operations, bookkeeping coordination, customer support, marketing content, purchasing, scheduling, supervision, and quality control.
55-70 min — Collaborative activity: responsibility-mapping clinic. In pairs or breakout groups, learners classify each function as owner-led, employee-led, contractor-supported, outsourced, automated, delayed, or advisory. Partners challenge unrealistic assumptions and note missing responsibilities.
70-80 min — Break and individual reflection. Learners mark the top three staffing or capability gaps that could affect launch feasibility.
80-95 min — Mini-lesson: Culture, hiring, training, compensation, and employer brand. Instructor explains how small businesses communicate expectations, document duties, create simple onboarding practices, estimate compensation, and present themselves to prospective workers.
95-108 min — Role-play: first hiring or contractor conversation. One learner plays the business owner and another plays a candidate, contractor, or advisor. The owner practices explaining the business mission, role expectations, work schedule, required skills, compensation assumptions, and culture expectations.
108-115 min — Formative assessment: organizational readiness review. Learners submit or share a quick draft containing one org chart or responsibility map, three priority roles, one training need, one culture principle, and one compensation question. Instructor gives brief HR-focused feedback.
115-120 min — Assignment preparation and handoff to CPA instructor. Instructor explains the Week 2 assignment sections, identifies what must be ready for Week 3 financial costing, and reminds learners to document open staffing-cost, payroll-tax, contractor, benefits, and scheduling assumptions.

Professional examples and case studies: owner-operated retail shop balancing sales floor coverage and inventory duties; food business deciding between employee, contractor, and outsourced bookkeeping support; consulting startup using contractors while protecting service quality; home-services company using a simple onboarding checklist to reduce rework.

Guided business-plan development: learners draft an initial organizational chart, responsibility matrix, staffing timeline, hiring priorities, onboarding/training notes, culture statement, compensation assumptions, and HR questions for financial review.

Instructor notes based on HR professional expertise: Emphasize role clarity before hiring. Warn learners not to use independent contractors as a substitute for proper employment classification without professional advice. Encourage plain-language job expectations, documented training steps, realistic owner workload estimates, and compensation assumptions that can be tested during Week 3 financial planning. Avoid giving legal advice; refer learners to qualified HR, payroll, legal, or tax professionals for jurisdiction-specific requirements.

Formative assessment: review each learner’s draft staffing plan for alignment with customer promise, business model, marketing/sales plan, owner capacity, and likely startup budget. Provide one strength, one risk, and one revision priority.

Preparation for linked assignment: learners leave with enough content to complete the Week 2 Practical Assignment: target-customer profile, competitor comparison, marketing and sales plan, initial organizational chart, staffing plan, hiring priorities, training notes, and culture statement.

Beginner support: provide sample org charts, role lists, sentence starters for culture statements, and a simplified owner/employee/contractor/advisor responsibility table.

Advanced extension: learners may add a 6- to 12-month staffing timeline, draft job posting, onboarding checklist, contractor scope-of-work outline, compensation benchmark notes, and staffing-related risk controls.